David Nutt: ban on drug research 'worst scientific censorship since Galileo'

Former chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs
David Nutt has called international drug laws "the worst case
of scientific censorship since the Catholic Church banned the works
of Copernicus and Galileo".

In Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Nutt has co-written a paper
arguing that "the decision to outlaw these drugs was based on
their perceived dangers, but in many cases the harms have been
overstated" and that psychoactive drugs must be exempted from
global UN conventions on drugs.

Nutt's co-authors are fellow former Council member Leslie
King and University of Carolina pharmacologist David Nichols. Nutt
was (in)famously sacked from his government advisor position in
2009 for arguing that government drug policy should be
evidence-based.

In a statement quoted by Reuters, Nutt continued: "The laws have never been updated
despite scientific advances and growing evidence that many of these
drugs are relatively safe. And there appears to be no way for the
international community to make such changes. This hindering of
research and therapy is motivated by politics, not science."

"If we adopted a more
rational approach to drug regulation, it would empower researchers
to make advances in the study of consciousness and brain mechanisms
of psychosis, and could lead to major treatment innovations in
areas such as depression and PTSD," he said.

Nutt had announced in
April that he wished to begin experiments in treating psylocibin --
the active ingredient in magic mushrooms -- and had secured funding
to do so, but he has since struggled to obtain approval thanks to
strict anti-psychoactive research regulations and legislation.